A HISTORY OF NOTTINGHAMSHIRE 



same Southwell book Master Thomas Lacy being 

 dismissed for negligence. On 8 September 

 1477, ' Thomas Blakburn, B. A., on the presenta- 

 tion of John Danvers [prebendary of Normanton 

 and therefore chancellor of the minster], because 

 it appeared as well by the report of trustworthy 

 persons as by inquiry held that Master Thomas 

 Lacy, last schoolmaster of the school of the 

 town of Nottingham, was too negligent in teaching 

 boys and others there, and had been a long time 

 absent from the teaching of the said school, was 

 admitted to the said school by the chapter and in 

 right of the chapter and duly constituted master 

 of the same.' 7 This Thomas Blakburn was no 

 doubt the Cambridge B.A., from whose security, 

 deposited on admission, the proctors of Cambridge 

 University had in 1472-3 taken 13*. 4^.,* 'be- 

 cause he did not determine in arts,' which ap- 

 parently means either that he did not give the 

 usual feast 9 on taking his B.A. degree ; or that, 

 after taking it, he did not stay up to lecture as 

 the statutes required. Nearly twenty years later 

 Thomas Blakburn was still master. The Not- 

 tingham Court Rolls show us ' Thomas Blake- 

 bourne, scolemaister,' on 15 September 1496, 

 suing Robert Oldam, ' sherman,' i.e. a shearer of 

 cloth, for a debt of 6d., he having promised him 

 on 6 May previous to pay by the hands of his 

 wife that amount for the tiling of the alms- 

 house (pro tegulacione domui Elemosinarum). The 

 damages claimed were ^.d. A verdict was found 

 for the defendant. Probably the almshouse was 

 the same as St. John's Hospital, and the school 

 was still quartered there, and the debt was for 

 an unpaid subscription for re-roofing it. 



In the chamberlains' accounts 10 for 1 503-4 is 

 an ' Item, payd unto Rychard Pykkerd for the 

 Scolemester Dason, 6s. 8d.' 



There is among the Nottingham records a 

 document of 5 May 1512, a bill, said to be 

 in the handwriting of William Barwell, the 

 mayor's clerk, for ' Reparacions made by Richard 

 Halom opon the cotage boght of Thomas 

 Shyrwod at Notyngham standyng in the Peper- 

 strete at John Howes bak gate Item, for a 

 loode of cley to the tofalle (i.e. lean-to) that 

 the chyldern lerne inne, 3^. Item for a bonche 

 of ston lattes (? stone slattes the stone slates 

 common in the north) to the same hous that the 

 children lerne inne, 3^.' 10a 



7 A. F. Leach, Mem. of Southwell Minster, 3 1 . 

 ' Thomas Blakburn ... in artibus baccalarius 

 . . . pro co quod Magister Thomas Lacy, ultimus 

 magister scolarum ville Notinghame, nimis negligens 

 in docendo pueros et alios ibidem . . . et deregimine 

 dictarum scolarum longo tcmpore absens fuerat . . . 

 ad dictas scohs per capitulum et jure capitulari admis- 

 sus fuerat, et magister earumdem debite constitutus. 



8 Camb. Grace Bk. A.I. p. 94 : ' De caucione Domini 

 Blacborn, quia non determinavit in artibus, I3/. \d? 



9 Rashdall, Hut. Univ. ii, 444. 



10 Borough Rec. iii, 320. 

 Ita Ibid. 402. 



Mr. Corner, second master of the High School, 

 to whose researches into the history of the school 

 this history is deeply indebted, assumes 11 that 

 this entry shows the old school existing 'after 

 the present foundation.' But it seems probable 

 that it refers to a much less exalted institution, 

 probably to some sort of ' petits ' or elementary 

 school. 



In 1512-13 a movement seems to have been 

 set on foot to make the school of Nottingham 

 which had hitherto been, as we have seen, a school 

 in which fees were paid, and in which even the 

 school building was not, at all events in the early 

 part of the 1 5th century, an endowment, but leased 

 by the master into a free school. When the 

 movement for the establishment of free schools 

 began it is hard to say. It is on record that 

 Abbot Sampson at Bury St. Edmunds, 11 * about 

 1 1 80, endowed the school of that town with 

 half of a neighbouring rectory, in consideration 

 of which 40 boys were to be free from tuition 

 fees ; and a little later freed the schoolboys 

 from contributing to the hire of their school 

 building by buying a stone house after the ex- 

 pulsion of the Jews, and giving it to the school. In 

 1384 Katharine Lady Berkeley established a free 

 grammar school, which still flourishes at Wotton 

 under Edge. llb The endowment of free grammar 

 schools received a great impetus in the reign of 

 Henry VI, culminating in Eton. After a partial 

 cessation, during the Wars of the Roses, the 

 movement went on with increasing vigour from 

 1480 onwards. 



The Lady Margaret, Dowager Countess of 

 Richmond and of Derby, mother of Henry VII, 

 set a conspicuous example to all benevolently- 

 minded widows by founding in I496 llc a chantry 

 grammar school at Wimborne Minster, Dorset, 

 where her parents were buried, the priest to 

 ' teche grammer frely to all theym that will come 

 thereunto.' She endowed the Lady Margaret 

 Professorships of Divinity in Oxford and Cam- 

 bridge in i5O3 lld , refounded or augmented and 

 established Christ's College, Cambridge in 1 5O5, lle 

 and when she died in 1509 was in process of 

 founding St. John's College, Cambridge, one of 

 the greatest foundations in either university at 

 the time. While the Lady Margaret, with the 

 vast possessions she had inherited and acquired 

 by successive marriages, was the richest woman 

 in the kingdom, so probably Dame Agnes Mellers 

 was the richest woman in Nottingham in her 

 day. Her husband was of the family 12 as his 

 ' canting ' arms, three merles on a shield argent, 



11 The Forester, July 1887, p. 8. 

 IU V.C.H. Stiff, ii, 306. 

 llb y.C.H. Glouc. ii, 396. 

 " c Exch. K. R. Eccles, iii, 36. 

 Ild C. H. Cooper, The Lady Margaret, 89. 

 " Ibid. 10 1. 



11 See article by Mr. S. Corner in The Forester, 

 July 1886. 



218 



